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Minutes of the Law & Justice Committee
June 17, 2013
6:30 p.m.

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DRAFT

 

The Law and Justice Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, June 17, 2013 at 6:30p.m. in the DeKalb County Administration Building's Conference Room East.

 

Chairman Julia Fullerton called the meeting to order. Members present Anthony Cvek, John Frieders, Ruth Anne Tobias, Anita Turner and Derek Tyson. Others present were Margi Gilmour, Thomas McCulloch, Rob Carlson, Dennis Miller, Sheriff Roger Scott, Chief Deputy Gary Dumdie, Richard Schmack.

 

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Mr. Oncken, seconded by Mr. Cvek, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from April 2013.

 

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Moved by Mr. Oncken, seconded by Mr. Cvek, and it was carried unanimously to approve the agenda as presented.

 

COURT SERVICES REPORTS - MS. MARGI GILMOUR

Ms. MargiĀ Gilmour, Director of the Adult and Juvenile Court Services Department, said that they are started to see their cases go up a bit. The Administration cases went up to 950 cases, which is huge. The CRS hours show for May 2013 at 84 cases with a little over 9,000 hours ordered with a little over 6,000 hours completed. The CRS hours for the Juveniles show 10 cases with 400 hours ordered with 385 hours completed. The committee asked Ms. Gilmour where the kids work at for these CRS hours. Ms. Gilmour said that Tail and Feed Them Soup takes a lot of the kids.

 

Ms. Cvek asked if the Community Gardens group has been approached about the kids working there.

 

Ms. Gilmour said yes they will be contacting them shortly.

 

Ms. Gilmour said that in the Juvenile Report that it shows that there were 7 admissions at Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) in May. One youth was retained twice, and 3 were detained for the 1st time, 4 for the 2nd time. The numbers are still down at the Juvenile Justice Center.

 

Ms. Gilmour said that there was one youth that was just ordered into residential placement. The youth is in a facility called O'Clare, which is in Wisconsin. The office has tried everything with this youth, but they need to be removed from their home. The youth's Mother has done everything that the office has asked her to do. The youth has serious theft issues and continues to steal. They have not spent anything out of their placement budget yet this year. They have about $80,000 in there and this is a very costly placement. The per diem is $228.44 per day which includes room and board, and therapy. If the youth remains in this facility for a year, it will cost us $82,000. This youth is also a transgender youth who is struggling with identity issues.

 

They will be closing the Safehouse, which has been vacant for 6 months. They have really struggled with trying to find appropriate foster parents. The Chief Judge took a look at the entire Probation Fee budget and decided to close it.

 

PUBLIC DEFENDER'S REPORT - MR. THOMAS McCULLOCH

Mr. McCulloch, DeKalb County Public Defender, said that his office closed just about the same amount that they opened 1661 cases last month and closed 1574. He said that there were 118 inmates in the jail this morning.

 

ESDA ANNUAL REPORT - MR. DENNIS MILLER

Mr. Dennis Miller, Director of the Emergency Services & Disaster Agency, gave his annual report. He said that in 2013 they will see a revision of the DeKalb County Emergency Operations Plan. This plan with its annexes defines how DeKalb County analysis, prepares for and responds to an emergency event, whether natural or manmade. The ongoing mandates that are required by the National incident Management System, (NIMS) will continue to be addressed and implemented. Mr. Miller said that the local Red Cross did an excellent job in the recent flooding and helping with the shelter at St. John's in Sycamore.

 

Disaster Planning meetings in Chicago are an on-going process. Once finalized, the plan will test our ability to use DeKalb County as a Regional Hub for the evacuation, mass care (sheltering, feeding, and related services) of Chicago and Cook County.

 

CORONER'S REPORT- Mr. Dennis Miller

Mr. Miller then presented the Coroner's Annual Report to the committee. He said that they saw 559 cases last year, which he said was the highest caseload numbers he has seen in years. He said that heroin numbers are going up with
11 cases last year. They had 9 fatal motor vehicle accident cases last year.

 

Cremation numbers have increased too. They saw 415 cases last year. Mr. Miller said that he saw more deaths involved younger people like 55 years and younger. Mainly these cases were because of cancer deaths and suicides.

 

The committee thanked Mr. Miller for his informative reports.

 

SHERIFF'S ANNUAL REPORT - SHERIFF ROGER SCOTT

Sheriff Scott presented his 2012 Annual Report to the committee members. He highlighted the following pages for the committee. On page 3 and page 4 covers the mandates that the Sheriffs Department works together to fulfill. And page 4 shows
the revenues that are earned in his department. Page 8 shows the civil process, which shows a decrease in 2012. Page 27 shows the Traffic crashes that are most frequent. Page 33 shows the fatalities in 2012, which amounted to 6. He said that this is a significant improvement in that area. Sixteen percent were drug or alcohol related fatalities.

 

On page 35 of his report is the criminal investigations division. FY2012 continued to be a busy year for our Investigations Division. For the 4th year in a row we broke the 500 mark with 579 cases assigned in 2012. These numbers represent a sharp increase over previous years where the high was 418 cases in 2008. Frauds and scams continue at a high level with burglaries dropping to their lowest number over the past 10 years.

 

Under the New Horizons section of his report he stated that they were able to purchase a Use of Force and Firearms Training Simulator through a small agency grant from the Duane Munter Foundation. This high quality simulator has a wide variety of applications for appropriate, realistic, and advanced training for Sheriffs Personnel. The training opportunities include use of handguns, high powered weapons, tasers and other non-lethal weapons. Previously our office was dependent upon a regional simulator that was often not available or operational due to age. The new training simulator is state of the art and will be available and viable for several years.

 

JAIL REPORT

Chairman Fullerton said that in the Jail Report for May 2013 the average daily population was 132 inmates.

 

ADJOURNMENT

Moved by Mr. Oncken, seconded by Mr. Cvek, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

____________________
Julia Fullerton, Chairman

 

 

____________________
Mary Supple, Secretary